Oh, lament, for we are hapless
And made to repeat.
You have a waxwork daughter,
Come and make her sit before the fire
Watch if it will make her grow dewy
Or bend
And settle back in some semblance
Of living calm.
The snow begins.
That is the very definition
drifting and senseless haze, endless, on blue, northern twilight
In pearlescent glow, and the shadow-shapes of the wood,
Looming,
In every direction stretching like time
Immemorial, and the crunching trudge
And the tiny, pattering hush of snowflakes landing
And the sharp, billowing air, and --
Dwindling thought
Until thought is the hush, and you cease to trudge
Your shins through the soft, soft
Eiderdown, powder white
And you pause
And in pausing, wonder
At the far distant summer you left behind,
The thick, yellow heat, the insect hum of the peach orchard
In full fruit, in full bloom, a dream
Irreconcilable, fleeting
A fathomless distance away,
And you kneel down.
**
